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Charismatic Keith Raniere turned his executive-seminar business into a vehicle to lure women into a secretive society where they were manipulated into catering to his sexual and financial whims, prosecutors say.

ALBANY, N.Y. — The leader of a controversial cult-like self-help group in New York will remain in custody as he's transported to Brooklyn to face charges that he led a secret society that used woman as sex slaves and branded them with a logo bearing his initials.

Followers of NXIVM know Keith Raniere, 57, as "The Vanguard." The FBI arrested him Monday and charged him with sex trafficking, sex trafficking and forced labor conspiracy.

He did not make an argument for bail Tuesday during an initial court appearance in Fort Worth, clearing the way for him to be transported to Brooklyn to face bail and preliminary hearings, according to John Marzulli, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for New York's Eastern District.

Prosecutors have accused Raniere of leading a secret group called DOS in which women who joined were known as masters and slaves. The women were recruited under the guise of DOS being a mentoring group.

In actuality, the women were treated as slaves, and in some cases Raniere used them as sex slaves, according to the FBI.

After The New York Times published a report in October on his group's branding of women, Raniere fled to Mexico.

Agents found him outside Puerto Vallarta in a luxury villa and brought him to U.S. District Court in Fort Worth on charges brought in New York, where NXIVM has its headquarters in the Albany suburb of Colonie.

“To hear the relief from these women — for all of us — it’s really over.”

Toni Natalie, former girlfriend of Keith Raniere

When Mexican officials took Raniere into custody, a group of women followed behind in a car being driven at high speeds, according to prosecutors. They want him in jail until his trial.

"The defendant, who was living in Mexico prior to his arrest and has access to vast resources, poses a significant risk of flight," according to court papers unsealed Tuesday. "In addition, his long-standing history of systematically exploiting women through coercive practices for his own financial and sexual benefit demonstrates that, if released, he would pose a danger to the community."

Clare Bronfman, an heiress to the Seagram's liquor fortune, is one of his longtime followers and already has provided him with millions of dollars he can tap, prosecutors argued.

Toni Natalie, who now lives in the Rochester area and dated Raniere in the 1990s, said seeing the news of Raniere's arrest Monday was surreal.

She has spoken out against Raniere and NXIVM for nearly 20 years, warning of his manipulative techniques and assisting women who defected from the group. Raniere has tied Natalie up with lawsuits and court proceedings since they broke up in 1999.

“To hear the relief from these women — for all of us — it’s really over," Natalie said Tuesday.

"Every five or six years, a group of women comes out and I sit down with them and support them any way I can," she said. "And every time, he walks away. He’s not walking away this time."

Participants in the programs of NXIVM, whose initials don't stand for anything but instead are pronounced Nex-ee-em, signed up for a weeklong course that could cost $5,000. When members couldn't pay, they "remained obliged to NXIVM," according to the allegations in the federal complaint.

NXIVM co-founder Keith Raniere and his then-girlfriend, Toni Natalie, are pictured in 1997, a year before Raniere's company was started in Albany, N.Y.(Photo: Courtesy of Toni Natalie)

The organization was started in 1998, first calling itself Executive Success Programs, and its website now says it is "a company whose mission is to raise human awareness, foster an ethical humanitarian civilization, and celebrate what it means to be human."

Among the recognizable names who have taken NXIVM courses, according to the (Albany, N.Y.) Times Union: Linda Evans, who played Krystle Carrington on the 1980s nighttime soap opera Dynasty; and Richard Branson, founder of Virgin America airline and the Virgin Group of companies.

Raniere's charismatic personality, on display onstage at NXIVM human-potential sessions, persuaded women to trust him. A 2003 Forbes magazine story on the organization was titled "Cult of Personality."

"Ranerie has maintained a rotating group of 15 to 20 women with whom he maintains sexual relationships," the federal complaint states.

Masters required the slaves to provide "collateral," such as sexually explicit photos or other damning information to keep them from leaving, the complaint said. Many of the victims ended up being branded in their public regions during a 20- to 30-minute ceremony.

“As alleged in the complaint, Keith Raniere created a secret society of women whom he had sex with and branded with his initials, coercing them with the threat of releasing their highly personal information and taking their assets,” U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue in the Eastern District of New York said in a statement.

In the Albany area Tuesday, media reported raids at homes associated with the group.

Raniere did not respond to emails seeking comment Monday, and Brian Poe, a Fort Worth-based lawyer who represented Raniere just for his hearing Tuesday, said the next proceedings would be in Brooklyn. Another court date has not been set.

Catherine Oxenberg, who played Amanda Carrington on Dynasty and whose daughter remains involved in NXIVM, issued a statement Monday saying she wants to "help all the young women affected by this cult."

Oxenberg has been out of touch with her daughter in recent months and had raised concerns about her well being.

"They are the victims of human trafficking, which is slavery," she said in the statement. "For months, I have worked to expose Keith Raniere and NXIVM, and today’s arrest vindicates my efforts. I want my daughter to know I love her and that I want her back in my life.”